Welcome
Sarah Playforth Limited is an established equality consultancy based in Sussex.
Sarah Playforth Limited provides advice, consultancy and training in disability, diversity and equality and personal and organisational development for organisations of all sizes and types.
Services are based on long experience, flexibility and responsiveness and take full account of individual needs and the particular way your organisation works.
The Director, Sarah Playforth, serves as a Lay Member on Employment Tribunals and was a Member of the Disability Living Allowance Advisory Board for eight years. She is Chair of East Sussex Disability Association and a member of several other advisory groups (see news). Sarah has over 40 years experience as a volunteer, Trustee, officer, middle and senior manager in the statutory and independent sectors, managing and developing public library services and equal access to them and researching, planning, and campaigning for full equality and inclusion in society for all.
An Exciting New Venture
Sarah Playforth Limited is supporting a new group of disabled consultants to work co-operatively to provide a very wide range of disability related services; whatever your disability related need, do make contact to find out how the group can meet it.
Specialities
Among Sarah's areas of specialist understanding are:
- Support for Direct Payment users and personal budget holders
- Disability and Deaf Awareness and Equality training
- Inclusion and access for people who are deafened, hard of hearing or deafblind
- Inclusion and access for all disabled people
- Development of organisational policy and strategy
- Change management and culture change
- Project Management
- Mentoring and personal development for D/deaf and disabled people
- Diversity awareness in general
Equality Act - Are you up to speed?
What do you know about this legislation, introduced in 2010? It protects people against discrimination on the grounds of these "protected characteristics":
- age; disability; gender; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sexual orientation.
But what does this mean in practice? It's not enough just to rewrite your policies. I can help you and your staff to understand how this Act is for everyone's benefit and to apply basic principles that work in all situations, for example:
- Paula has had six months off sick with a serious illness that has resulted in her becoming profoundly deaf and with limited mobility. Paula's job is senior customer adviser and her manager is struggling to think how (or if) Paula can return to work.
- Jim is an efficient warehouse supervisor and a committed Christian; he refuses to consider employing or promoting anyone he thinks may be homosexual and one of his staff has said they will go to an employment tribunal about this.
- Sarfraz is about to reach his sixtyfifth birthday; he is one of the directors on the board of a charity working to support young disabled people and his fellow directors are all in their thirties and forties. They believe Sarfraz should step down to allow another younger director to be appointed.
- Jill has been living as a man (John) outside work for ten years and is now approaching the time when, after several years of counseling, he feels ready for gender reassignment surgery and thereafter to live as a man at work as well.
- Marika is pregnant and is a vital member of a team making aircraft; the rest of the (all male) team think she won't manage the job and should leave and stay at home when her baby is born.